


Light the Fire that Gives and Takes

by Evesi



Category: Assassin's Creed
Genre: Assassin's Creed III, Gen, Kink Meme, Not Really Character Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-16
Updated: 2013-01-16
Packaged: 2017-11-25 17:46:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,824
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/641395
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Evesi/pseuds/Evesi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He walks this earth, and he sees it, sees what this world could have been.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Light the Fire that Gives and Takes

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the following prompt on the AssCreed kink meme: _After seeing how his village is gone thanks to Congress that he helped put in place, Connor wonders if it wouldn't have been better if he'd never existed. He sees world the way it would have been sans him (power of Apple, Juno, etc)._

The village was cold.

Many years ago, Connor had found nothing but warmth here, regardless of the frost on the ground or the chill in the air. This was his home and his center, his mother his guiding light. It did not matter that his father was not present or that the villagers would still whisper behind their backs about him and his heritage, about the unfortunate nature of his birth. She was strong for the both of them, and that was all he needed.

When she passed, some of that warmth had died with her. He still knew the smiles of his friends, but never again was the fire in the longhouses as comforting as when Kaniehtí:io was by his side. In its place was the frigid grasp of anger; the desire for revenge consumed him, and his obsession with a man named Charles Lee--a man with black hair and a cruel smile--became his identity. 

His loss had been great, the effects of it far-reaching. What he felt now, though, could not compare.

A boy named Ratonhnhaké:ton had left this place to become a man to protect his village, but as he stood here now, alone, he wondered if his actions had destroyed it. What would have happened if he had not left? What if his home had never felt the touch of the Templar and Assassin war? A thousand lives he’d taken for the sake of his village, and for what? A scattered people, a lost homeland, and a trinket around his neck.

\--A trinket that glowed and hummed, that called to him in the language of whispers and secrets.

It spoke to him, luring him slowly but surely toward the longhouse where the clan mother had once resided. Inside, Connor found a familiar box and, within, the very item that had sent him on this journey. As if alive, the Piece of Eden beckoned to him like a moth to a flame, its light brighter than any fire he’d ever seen. Closer and closer he drew until, at last, he held the orb in his hands.

But there was no warmth to be found here. Connor felt the chill of grief, of regret well up within him, and the world around him was engulfed in flames.

He saw his mother and his father; he saw them in love, and he saw them fall apart. Haytham would return to his Templar ideals, and Kaniehtí:io became the clan mother. The village prospered, but he felt it, knew it instinctively, that they still feared the encroachment of the white man. He could see it in the eyes of his people, in his mother and his friends; he could hear the whispers: _they are coming, they are coming_.

And when they did, the village burned. The forest burned. The world burned.

Connor could hear the screams of children, of women, of men; he could smell ash and death, could taste it on his tongue. His mother--where was his mother? Like a specter, he moved through the debris, and he called out to her in a voice that would never be heard and would never be known. The flames licked at him, but there was no heat; the walls collapsed on him, but there was no pain. He was a man out of time and out of place.

Again, he watched his mother die, and as her final breath passed her lips, Connor felt darkness swallow him in its velvet embrace.

He struggled and fought against it as the inky blackness filled his lungs, gagging him, and when he thought he could take no more, there was light--the sickly, grey light of winter. There was snow on the ground, and when Connor lifted his eyes, he saw the Davenport manor before him. There was something wrong about it though: the grounds were overgrown, the home itself more rundown than he’d ever seen it.

Most importantly, however, was that the door had been kicked in.

Horror filled him, and he ran and ran and ran, shouting the name of his mentor as he stormed inside. Blood trailed down the hall toward the back of the house and into the basement; broken glass, papers, and books littered the floor. The house had been ransacked, and now, an eerie silence hung over the area.

Hands curled into fists, Connor made his way down the steps, and there he was: Achilles, dead in a pool of his own blood. Beside him, his cane laid shattered on the floor, the handle still resting in the fold of the old man’s hand. Connor came to a stop by his mentor’s side, bent to lift him, to give him a proper burial, but his hands slipped right through him. Again and again, he tried, but this was the same as with his mother--there was nothing he could do; he was but a phantom in this world.

The floor opened up beneath him, gaping and hungry, and he shouted, hands reaching for the quickly vanishing view of the manor. Down and down he fell, cold air biting at his skin as the wind whistled loudly in his ears, but instead of crashing into the ground below, Connor came to a neat, albeit abrupt, stop a foot off the ground. He panted as he got to his feet and took in the scenery around him; he was at Valley Forge, and the Patriots were at war. The sound of marching men, of drills being practiced filled his ears, but it was the man who stood before him that caught his attention: Charles Lee.

A messenger passed by and handed the general a letter. Gaze hardening, Connor marched over and he peered at the words written there. It spoke of burning the nearby native villages, spoke of their allegiance to the British. This was when Connor had learned of Washington’s betrayal, but where was the man in question? He scanned the vicinity for his former ally and found nothing; even Lafayette seemed absent from the scene.

Lee crumpled the paper in his hands and sent the courier away, his lips twisting into a grim smile. As he returned to his tent, it was then that Connor realized what had happened, why it was not commander-in-chief _he_ knew who was receiving the news. In this world that he walked in, Washington was already dead--dead by the hands of the Templars. The Brotherhood was nothing but a faint memory, and there was no resistance--not without Achilles, not without... him.

With the second razing of his village imminent, Connor paced, slipping in and out of Lee’s tent, desperate to get the man’s attention. It didn’t matter what he did though; he did not exist here, did not belong. This was a world where he had no hand in its fate, but someone deemed it appropriate for him to see this--for him to _feel_ the pain and agony of losing everyone, of losing everything.

Eventually, he took to standing outside Lee’s tent, staring numbly in the direction of his village. Connor knew now that his actions had only bought his people time before they were ousted from their land, but that was still better than this. All around him, soldiers started to mobilize, and he wondered if he would have to watch as his home burned to the ground all over again.

His feet automatically took him toward the forest, but as he crossed over the river, the world _turned_. The earth became the sky, and the sky became the earth. Connor was falling once more, falling into a blue abyss, and this time, he didn’t fight it, didn’t make a sound. He merely wondered what other horrors he would be forced to witness.

The amulet around his neck pulsed--once, twice, three times, and he was blinded by a white light. Connor lifted a hand to shield his eyes, but it was as if they were still wide open. He saw his father and his men; they smiled and laughed, pat each other on the back. Lee wore a sash and fine military regalia, and instinctively, he knew: the Templars had achieved what they wanted--the man was now the leader of a nation freshly made.

Those familiar figures faded from his mind, replaced with images of soldiers marching--a red cross emblazoned on their uniforms. He saw cannons and guns, horseless carriages and mushroom-shaped clouds that touched the heavens. Metal ships sailed the seas, and steel birds flew in the sky, raining fire upon the ground below; war raged, and blood was shed. There was death, so much death, and for all that the Order professed to seek peace through order, Connor saw very little of it now.

As he watched humanity bleed itself dry, the light that had blinded him eventually receded, as did the images that flickered through his mind, and when he chanced the opportunity to open his eyes, Connor saw the world--blue and green, brown and white--far below him. It was beautiful, far more beautiful than any renditions he’d seen painted onto globes. He found the Americas, Europe, Africa; he saw the ice caps in the far north and south. Connor saw the pinpricks of light that dotted the landscape. From his vantage point, the earth looked to be at peace. Perhaps some time in the future all would be well, or so it was his hope.

But it would not be so.

Once again, he was blinded by a flash of light, and when he could see again, the world had been set aflame. Thick, grey smoke had replaced white clouds, and the light that spread across the continents no longer twinkled like the stars in the sky but raged--raged like the flames that had engulfed his village.

_Your existence has prevented this._

The voice spoke directly to him in his thoughts, and Connor felt a fierce chill wash over him, as if his blood had suddenly turned to ice. He remembered her, remembered her as the one who had directed him to Achilles, to his path as an Assassin. She appeared by his side, flickering in and out of view.

_Your sacrifice will enable humanity to survive a time of crisis._

And then he was falling, falling, falling--falling to his death.

He awoke with a start, the Piece of Eden rolling out of his hands. Connor’s breath rattled, and a cold sweat slicked his skin. The amulet around his neck glowed softly; he closed a fist around it, felt its unnatural warmth. Instinctively, he knew what he had to do next, and he rose, his legs feeling shaky beneath him. Perhaps that journey was supposed to reassure him of his path, of the righteousness of his quest, but an emptiness gnawed at him.

The village was cold, and he longed for a warmth gone from this world.


End file.
